It has become increasingly common for video assets to be delivered to users over a network. Movies, television shows, home videos, how-to videos, and music videos are merely a few examples of the types of video assets that are currently provided over the Internet, telephone networks, intranets, cable connections, etc. Video assets that are obtained over a network can be played as the video assets are being delivered (streamed), or after the entire video assets have been downloaded.
Regardless of how the users play the video assets, the creators of video assets have typically created the video assets with a particular goal in mind. In many cases, the goal is simply to make money. This may be the goal, for example, for the creators of a television sitcom. In other cases, the goal may be to promote an idea. When the goal is promoting an idea, the creators may be less concerned about the revenue the video produces, but vitally concerned about how many distinct users view the video in its entirety. Promoting an idea may be the goal, for example, of a video that conveys a political or religious message.
While goals are easy to identify, it is difficult to know how to best achieve them. For example, the creator of a particular video may use trial and error in an attempt to maximize revenue. Specifically, the creators may allow the users to view a certain amount of video for free prior to paying to watch the entire video. The point within the video at which the free viewing ends is referred to as the “paywall”, and the period between the beginning of the video and the location of the paywall is referred to as the “free preview window”. To determine the effect that different paywall locations have on revenue, during a first testing period the creator may set the free preview window to be one minute. After the first testing period, the creator may have a second testing period during which the video is provided with a five minute free preview window. After the second testing period, the video creator may compare the percentage of users that paid to view the video during the two testing periods to decide which paywall location will result in higher revenue. Based on the result, the video creator may maintain the paywall location, revert to the old paywall location, or try yet another paywall location.
Trial and error tests may be run sequentially, as described in the previous example, or concurrently. As an example of concurrent testing, during the same testing period the same video may be provided to some users with a one minute paywall, and to other users with a five minute paywall. Unfortunately, whether performed sequentially or concurrently, using trial and error in an attempt to achieve a particular video delivery goal is very labor-intensive and can lead to significant inefficiencies. For example, it may turn out that both tested paywalls were significantly shorter than optimal, but that changing the paywall now will not bring back the lost viewers that started watching the video but decided to not continue due to the short paywalls that were tested.
Trial and error can also lead to inefficient results because the video creator failed to identify and adjust a parameter that would have had a significant effect on achieving the goal. For example, it may be that the duration of the paywall for viewing the video asset has less effect on revenue the layout of the video player. By focusing exclusively on testing paywall durations, the video creator may have missed out on a significant revenue increase that would have resulted from changing the layout of the video player.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.